If you need lighting for your evening summer party but are on a tight budget consider making tiki torches from empty beer bottles. All you need to buy is the oil and you can easily make a dozen of them in under an hour.

Instructables user tjesse makes beer bottle tiki torches for camping trips, but they also work great for a budget barbecue. Remove the bottle cap carefully from your pop-off beer bottle so it can be reused (twist-offs don't reattach very well). Punch a hole in the cap with a screwdriver and a hammer. You'll need to make a wick from cotton string, the thicker the better; a strand from a cotton mop head works perfectly. If it was used as a mop recently you should soak it in water to remove any leftover cleaning chemical residues and you can then throw it in your dryer if you're in a hurry.

Feed the cotton wick through the hole in your bottle cap and leave an inch or so exposed at the top; you'll want the total wick length to be around twice the length of the bottle. Fill the bottle with lamp oil or citronella (smells woodsy and keeps bugs away), carefully reattach the bottlecap, and light when ready. The light will last a variable length of time depending on how much wick is exposed and the type of oil used. If you'd like to hang the torch from this post which is a more finished soluton than this last-minute budget project.